October 7, 2009

–The free download of Vampire Weekend’s new track “Horchata” has shaken the dust off the intractable divides between the army of anons. Over at Brooklyn Vegan, we see college students (“The F. Scott Fitzgerald of American Indie Rock”) pitted against college students (“…it’s like the whiffenpoofs started a ska band. why would they do that? what do the whiffenpoofs know about ska? NOTHING. it’s senseless.”). There is also “Nathan Williams,” who claims, “i have hummus on my balls,” and, over at Stereogum, a Hipster Runoff reference and hateful abort-your-VW-loving-baby tirades and retributions. Notably, the track features percussion work by Mauro Refosco, the guy who played with Thom Yorke’s band in Los Angeles. At this point it’s starting to look like post-backlash backlash is not actually a thing. Get some lozenges and sip some rice drink, haters!

–After quickly selling out a Terminal 5 date with Dinosaur Jr. in November, Sonic Youth have added dates at the considerably smaller Music Hall of Williamsburg. Their choice of openers is typically sure: pop punk starlet Jemima Pearl on November 25, following Talk Normal on November 24. Talk Normal, a duo who are comfortably contemporary to the Lightning Bolts and Drunkdrivers of the world, regularly get comparisons to the No Wave skronk that begat Sonic Youth. Pearl may have more to do with the Experimental Jetset Moore and Gordon were after in the early ’90s.

— Public Enemy has become one of the first big name artists to try out a fan-based album scheme. Rather than pay-what-you-want, this is pay-or-we-wont. By aligning themselves with sellaband.com, they hope fans will contribute $250k to their eleventh studio outing. Says Chuck D: “Sellaband’s financial engine model goes about restructuring the music business in reverse. It starts with fans first, then the artists create from there. The music business is built on searching for fans and this is a brand new way for acts to create a new album with fans first, already on board.” Do they break up if they’re only pledged half that amount?

–James Murphy continues to meld that which was dancy post-punk into contemporary, punkish dance music with his latest LCD Soundsystem outing, a cover of Alan Vega’s “Bye Bye Bayou”, which will be released as a 12″ to celebrate Record Store Day’s Vinyl Saturday on November 7. Find it at your local spot. And look out for a completely unrelated full length in early 2010, or if Facebook profiles are to believed, March, to be exact.